Surveys which have been conducted into the stamp purchasing patterns and preferences among Canadian households have revealed that 70% of the households in large cities that have over $35,000 per year in earnings would change their stamp buying habits for greater convenience even if it meant that at least 10 stamps had to be purchased at a single time.
Postage meters are well-known. Postage stamping machines, particularly for commercial use, tend to be large and complex, with many mechanical parts, costly, and noisy in use. They cannot be readily adapted to a home market. Such devices generally comprise a frame having a slot to receive an envelope placed in the slot, and guide means to direct an envelope to a printing station, and, at that station, means to print the envelope with an appropriate postage stamp. A manual clock means within the device allows for the stamp to be appropriately dated; mechanical counter means within the device enables the postage printed to be drawn from a mechanical postage fund, so that postage will not be printed once that fund has been exhausted, and that fund may be periodically replenished as required by physically taking the device to a predetermined post office.
Canadian Patent No. 1,217,287 of Kling, et al issued Jan. 27, 1987 describes and illustrates such a stamping device combined with a telephone. The selected postage printed on an envelope placed in a slot in the base of the telephone is monitored and passed by a telephone line to a post office account.
Canadian Patent No. 1,175,568 of Duwell, et al issued Oct. 2, 1984 describes and illustrates a remote postage meter recharging system for commercial postage meters whereby a data centre, coupled to the postage meter by telephone line, may update the record of the user stored at the data centre with respect to postage used in the meter.
Banking from automated tellers is a fairly common practice these days. The main reason for their popularity is convenience. Most machines are available 24 hours per day, seven days per week and are housed indoors in shopping malls, bank lobbies and convenience stores, for example.
However, except for a simple cash withdrawal, there are major disadvantages. The user must gather their banking papers together and go outside of their house to use a machine. And in some cases there are lines of people waiting to use the particular machine and at times, the machine is inoperable.